A pseudo-Chinese chicken dinner with a dear friend of mine whom I've known for the whole 10 years I've lived in Finland. She's soon off to continue her studies at Oxford so we've been hanging out quite a bit before that, drinking well and eating, well..., not quite so well as I'm certainly not the best cook on the planet. Tonight a rather humble dinner with a rather humble wine (which we almost didn't get because for the first time I was asked for my ID to check tham I was of legal drinking age. I hadn't taken it along. Grrrr. Gladly there was a familiar employee who saved us!). It's fine QPR at c.16 euros and shows both very true varietally and geographically. I love that note of sorrel on the nose. This is not a complex wine, but is rather far from the spoofulatedness of so many modern wines despite its almost voluptious fruit - and it is even unoaked (wow, that's getting really rare!). I've only once tasted their oaked S. Urbino (1997 IIRC) and though delectable enough I wasn't too taken with that. Maybe the year, maybe a bit too oaky? I'm not sure, the oak seemed integrated and there was great acidity despite the warmth of the year. It was interesting to note that both in this and the S. Urbino there was a very persistent and very delectable aftertaste which is not quite mineral but more metallic. Normally metallic isn't something I want, but in these wines it is a lovely nuance.

2004 J. Hofstätter Pinot Nero Alto Adige Meczan - Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Alto Adige (4/12/2006)Beautiful, light red. The nose is sweetly fruity with raspberry dominant but with quite much more acidic red berries also and quite a bit of saltiness/sorrel. The palate is light, fairly intense, with decent and ripe acidity, not a great deal of complexity, lots of sweet fruit, but it is very balanced and very food friendly and very much fun to drink. A fine unoaked Pinot with a funny, pleasantly metallic aftertaste.